The Goblet of Love
by Hila
Summary: Harry and Snape are destined for each other, didn't you know? well, they didn't know either. [not as cheesy as the title sounds]
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** The Goblet of Love  
**Author:** Hila  
**Pairing:** SS/HP (duh)  
**Category:** Humor, fluff  
**Rating:** PG13 (I guess, I'm so sorry but I just can't write lemons!)  
**Summary:** Harry and Snape are destined for each other, didn't you know? well, they didn't know either (see posted plot bunny for details)  
**Disclaimers:** not mine, JK's, 'm just having fun.  
**Notes:** this story resulted from a plot bunny that was posted on the

Afterclass ML

The Goblet of Love  
Chapter 1

People called it the Goblet of Love. This wasn't its real name, of course, but since its real name was unpronounceably long and meant something along the lines of the match-making cup', it didn't mind being called the Goblet of Love.

The Goblet's work was very intricate: it had a list of all living and unmarried witches and wizards and had to match between them according to the nature of their magical signature, their personality, their preferences and a dozen other criteria. The Goblet did this based on various statistics and a very complicated network of spells which enabled it to think' and to feel' (as much as a goblet can think or feel, in any case) and which were strong and permanent enough to register it as a high class magical artifact and place it under the careful care of the Ministry.

The Goblet usually liked its work; after all, it is very rewarding to be responsible for every successful marriage in wizarding England for the last two or so thousand years. Things were different back then; when the magical community had smaller, each marriage had been a celebration of the entire community. The wedded couple's family  
and friends would all gather around the goblet to ask if the match was a good one. If the goblet approved then the soon to be wedded's names would magically appear in pink letters above the goblet. By the time the names faded the couple was officially married.

Such was the power that it held back then, it was responsible for each and every marriage. Now things were different: with the growth of the wizarding community, consulting the goblet has become a mere formality. Usually one person would come before the wedding ceremony to ask for the Goblet's advice as it was considered good  
luck if the goblet approved. If the Goblet didn't approve of the match then the ceremony was usually held off for a few months, even years. After a certain delay, where the rejected fiancé's lived together then they would come consult the Goblet again. This  
usually worked because people living together usually ended up changing each other and, more often than not, two people would be better suited to be married after a few years of living together rather than a few months.

The growth of the community also had another effect on the Goblet.

It still held the name of every non-married witch and wizard but it was a lot harder to select the perfect match. The Goblet found one of theses perfect matches about every ten years. This meant that, when the Goblet **did** come across a perfect match, it was very  
impatient to see it turned into a marriage.

Right at this moment though, the goblet was extremely irritated with its latest pair. Oh, he'd seen them coming for over eight years. Ever since the boy had come to Hogwarts their names had resonated, for lack of a better term, and each year the resonance was growing stronger. But since the second removal of Tom Riddle's name, the  
resonance had been replaced by pure attraction between the two names…  
and there weren't any signs that the people involved were getting any closer to coming infront of the Goblet.

Well, the Goblet technically **could** force a marriage, and it already did so not very long ago, but it had certain standards. The most important of which being that the people involved had to be living together for over five years without pursuing a deeper relationship.

This made the Goblet think about the last two times that it had issued warnings. The first, quite a while ago, was for Arthur and Molly Weasley. Oh, they had been together all right, but neither had yet made a move towards engagement and the Goblet had felt  
obliged to act. They had come to it barely a day later and were proclaimed husband and wife within the week.

A glaring success.

The second, and more recent case, was that of James and Lily Potter. Those two had been destined for each other ever since the day they met, in a rather similar fashion to its current case if it thought about it, but they had been a nightmare to get together.

Usually a pair that received the Goblet's warning (which literally asked them to get married in the following seven days or come to negotiate with the Goblet itself) was given, after ample negotiation, a few months to get used to living together and to the  
idea of getting married to each other.

But those couples at least showed some good will! The Potters (Potter and Evans at the time) had ignored their warning. This meant extra work for the Goblet since it meant that, on the seventh day, it had to use its magic to force them to consummate their marriage (after the warning's expiration the couple was legally married).

The Goblet was forced to repeat the process several times, which, it has to be noted, the then future Potters resisted, until they finally gave in and agreed to sleep together after three whole months. And even then it was sleep and nothing more, remembered the  
Goblet while gritting its proverbial molars. It took another six months of the Goblet's prodding for the two stubborn brats to agree that they might be able to see something worthwhile in each other and another year (in which the Goblet had said to hell with it' and abandoned them as a lost cause) before they came to stand infront of the Goblet, awaiting its agreement to their marriage.

When, nine months later, the name Harry Potter' was added to the Goblet's list, it had seriously considered to go on strike until that generation died, for fear of going through the same headache again.

And now here it was, with Harry Potter having turned nineteen last summer and seriously considering sending the boy a warning. Well, the boy **had** been living with his match for over five years (eight years to be exact, even though the Goblet usually didn't consider  
years in Hogwarts as living together', but this boy, like his parents, was a special case) and dealing with his match on adult terms for about two years.

The names had started to attract, for lack of a better word, each other after Tom Riddle's second removal which was soon after the boy's seventeenth birthday (probably had something to do with the change in the boy's magical energy signature as well) and the boy had been on the Hogwarts staff since his eighteenth birthday.

Now, as a general rule, the Goblet tended not to interfere with the Hogwarts staff. That is, mainly because Albus Dumbledore (bless his beard) liked playing match-maker with his staff and, with about a ninety-nine percent rate of success, was rendering the Goblet's work much easier. So they had a tacit agreement: Hogwarts was Albus' private playground.

But the Potter boy had to be different, didn't he? Well, not that his match was that much better. The Goblet had been trying to find someone for that man for **years**! At least when Potter's name had reacted to him, the Goblet had let out a proverbial sigh of relief, thinking that its job had been done for it. But noooo, it couldn't be that simple, could it?

Actually, the Goblet had decided to give the couple a few more years before sending them a formal warning (if just to save it the headache of extra work), but now that the Herthya girl had brought it up, the Goblet could not let go of the subject.

To be totally fair, the girl hadn't done it purposefully. Mona Herthya had come to consult the Goblet about a marriage that her parents had arranged for her. She herself could not see how she was supposed to match the man she was promised to in any way, shape, or  
form.

Once she had given the names, the Goblet could not agree more. Nothing positive would come of a union between these two.

The Goblet indicated so by making the two names appear in black. The girl sighed in relief. Then she had started talking to the Goblet, telling him that she wanted to try another name, one that she had dreamed about for a long time. The Goblet didn't mind, the worst that could happen was the disappointment that the girl might  
feel.

Then the girl had said that name: Harry Potter.

The Goblet immediately expressed its disapproval and the girl left with her shoulders slightly slumped. But the Goblet was left in an extremely irritated state. And now it was on the verge of sending a warning.

The decision to actually send the warning was, in the end, a quite simple one: since both people in this union were male they technically couldn't reproduce (although with these two one could never be sure) and therefore dealing with the mess now will leave the Goblet a longer time to recuperate before the next perfect match was brought to its attention.

And so it was decided: Harry Potter and Severus Snape were to be married, whether they liked it to or not.

to be continued

A/N: hey guys! here's the reason for some of the modifications made  
to the original plot bunny. well, when I read the bunny it kinda  
stuck in my head and wouldn't leave...now, the problem is that I  
thought that it was posted on the MoM list and therefore planned the  
whole thing with Harry teaching DADA as Ash (would have been  
hilarious, don't you think? "err war mage? was that owl for you?")  
anyway, this is why Harry is older in this fic and why he's a teacher  
at Hogwarts of course, after the 5th book I'm quite convinced  
that he's gonna become anyway so it works

C&C greatly appreciated!

Ja  
Hila


	2. Chapter 2

The Goblet of Love  
Chapter 2

Severus Snape was sitting in his office. Contrary to student legends he was neither emptying some poor girl of her blood nor was he fervently making up pop-quizzes that resembled exams more than anything. No, Severus Snape was merely enjoying a very well written historical novel. He did, after all, need to let steam out in between classes so as not to go insane.

It was a fortunate coincidence that it was in this inter-class lull that an owl crash-landed on his table.

A very pink owl.

Severus' blood froze at the sight of the owl. The last time he had seen a similar creature had been when a pair of them had landed in the middle of the table at an Order meeting over twenty years ago, Severus remembered it quite clearly. What he could also remember very clearly was Potter and Lily's reactions to the owls. At the time he had felt rather sorry for Lily.

Now, Severus promised himself as he was eyeing the owl nervously, he would at least react in a manner slightly more dignified than Potter did. Yes, even if no one could see him he would take this farce with as much dignity as he could.

He would look appalled, he decided, and maybe blanch a bit in anger and distaste and then he would march into Albus' office and demand that the Headmaster please keep his toys' half-sentient noses out of Severus' private life.

Yes, this was what he would do. Nothing at all like the gaping and hysterical yapping that Potter did in front of the strategic division of the order.

Severus detached the (pink) envelope from the owl's leg and shooed it out the window. He briefly considered transfiguring it into a quill and offering it to some first year girl but though better of it: breaking one of Ablus' toys was the safest way of insuring that the man would slowly and twinklingly drive you towards insanity.

Severus took his time opening the letter, trying to put off the inevitable, after all this matchmaking business could not be good for his old heart, could it?

But no amount of cynicism could ever prepare Severus for the name that he saw written on the (pink) parchment card.

A portrait on the wall was snickering quietly; this was even better then when that boy James had received the waning!

A few floors overhead Harry was teaching a DADA-classful of seventh year Ravenclaws. They were practicing with extremely sensitive spells, and so Harry had closed the classroom's windows and so, therefore, he barely noticed the thump' of an owl hitting the  
window full speed (somewhere at the ministry a goblet was sighing exasperatedly about the sheer incompetence of all things feathery). It was sheer luck that Harry did, in fact, notice anything at all.

Making sure not to disturb any of the students (he did NOT want to clean up if and when one or more of them messed this up); Harry gently opened the window to see what had made the soft noise.

Surprise' cannot even begin to describe his expression when he saw the pink owl that was knocked-out on the window-seal.

He took the owl in and put it on his desk, complete with a silencing charm, figuring that he should wait for the class to end before trying to revive the poor animal and relieve it of its (pink) letter. He would also see what he could do about the poor thing's dreadful colour.

Thirty minutes later Harry was staring at the owl. It was awake and free of parchment but pink was obviously its natural colour (either that or someone more powerful than Harry had charmed it pink but Harry liked to think that Dumbledore wasn't **that** cruel…or insane).

"I'm sorry lad, seems I can't do anything for you. Do you want to leave or do you have to wait for an answer?"

When the owl didn't move Harry decided to read the letter first.

"Let's see:

_Dear Mr Potter, it is our honour to inform you that,__by recommendation of the Goblet of Love and with the formal approval__of the Ministry of Magic, you are hereby engaged to Mr Severus__Snape. _

_Have a pleasant life_.

What the fuck? Oh...a p.s.

_In__case of displeasure you may consult the rules of this engagement__with any high-grading wizard within your community_."

huh.

Well, Dumbledore has better have an explanation and if it was one of his jokes yet again…Harry hadn't completely decided on a course of action yet but if the scenarios that flashed through his mind were any indication, it would be very pleasant for him and much less so for the old Headmaster.


End file.
